Mobile cloud DVR app BooxTV snapped up by Finnish telco

The idea of third-party services that allow online TV recording may have proved controversial in some quarters, but now a Finnish telco is acquiring just such a thing.

DNA Ltd has bought a fifth of Booxmedia, whose BooxTV app is an internet-based DVR for smartphones and tablets.

BooxTV’s mobile app includes a TV guide offering around a dozen Finnish channels whose shows can be recorded in to the cloud for later playback in the app. The app also includes several live free-to-air channels.

Deal terms were not disclosed.

DNA will offer it free for six month to its more than three million customers, it said (release).

In the UK, TVCatchUp once offered a similar cloud DVR service, but took it offline after broadcasters complained. It instead began offering live streams without recording but has similarly attracted their legal complaint.

Booxmedia is also working on Booxmote, a parallel app that will let BooxTV users beam recorded shows to devices like TVs, projectors and laptops.

It is a vision of the smartphone as the centre of an in-home and out-of-home media system.